Carlos Ruiz is still hitting .350 (in case you hadn’t noticed)

In Monday’s action, Carlos Ruiz was a major contributor to the Phillies attack in an 8-3 romp over the Pirates, going 3 for 5 with 3 runs scored and a stolen base. That performance pushed Ruiz’s batting average back above the .350 mark, just 4 points behind current NL leader David Wright.

So far this year, Ruiz is having one of the best seasons ever for catchers aged 33 or older. Ruiz was last batting below .300 on Apr 27 and, since racing past .350 with a 4 for 5 game on May 17, has been above the .350 mark on all but 5 days, and never lower than .344. Yet, it seems hardly anyone outside Philly has noticed.

After the break, I’ll take a closer look on what is so far a quite remarkable season.

These are the best qualifying seasons by OPS+ for catchers aged 33 or older.

Ruiz is currently at 3.3 WAR less than half-way through the season, so he’s certainly on pace to top this WAR list by the end of the season.

Are you surprised? I was, until I saw this. For many of the catchers in the two lists above, their best OPS+ or WAR season was in these lists, as can be seen from the table below.

Age of Best Seasons for Selected Catchers

Player

OPS+

WAR

Bubbles Hargrave

33

30

Carlos Ruiz

31

31

Carlton Fisk

24

24

Elston Howard

34

35

Ernie Lombardi

34

30

Gabby Hartnett

36

29

Javy Lopez

33

32

Jorge Posada

35

31

Lance Parrish

26

26

Mike Grady

34

34

Mike Piazza

28

28

Roy Campanella

29

31

Wally Schang

26

31

Of the above 13 catchers, only two (Hartnett and Parrish) played 100 games before their age 24 season. So, let’s use that as our benchmark and see how the other catchers who did play 100 games before age 24 fared in OPS+ when aged 33 or older.

Hmm. A much less impressive list of seasons than for the catchers with later career starts. Lends more than a little credence to the notion that catchers have only so many games in them, regardless of when they start. So, perhaps then it shouldn’t be a great surprise that Ruiz, who played his first game at age 27, is having a career year now.

So, how will Ruiz’s season end up? No guarantees, but his career splits give some optimism that he can finish strong. Ruiz’s best month is May and his worst is June, after which he gets progressively better the remainder of the year, with August and September close to his May levels. This was the pattern of Ruiz’s 2010 season when he hit .302 for the year, and has been the pattern so far this year, dropping from a 1.180 OPS in May to .845 in June. To be sure, Ruiz has benefited from a .369 BABIP which is probably unlikely to be maintained for a full season. That advantage is reflected in Ruiz having 33% more ground ball outs than fly ball outs, despite having 20% more fly balls than ground balls put in play.

Finally, should Ruiz win the NL batting title, he will be only the third 33+ year-old catcher to lead his league in batting, joining Bubbles Hargrave (1926) and Ernie Lombardi (1942). Joe Mauer is the only other catcher of any age to win a batting title.

The big thing with Ruiz, and probably all catchers, is staying healthy. To perform at such a high level while absorbing collisions at the plate and countless baseballs to the head is amazing. In 2010 his June was actually cut short with a concussion after getting bonked with a broken bat.

(1) I’m a little confused about the sortable table labeled “Age of Best Seasons for Selected Catchers.” Correct me if I’m wrong: That table lists each individual who appears on one or both of the previous lists, and shows the age at which that player had his best season, as measured by OPS+ and by WAR.

(2) When you discuss those who “played 100 games before their age 24 season” (or didn’t), is that total games through age 23, or 100 games in any season before age 23? Is it games caught? I am just really confused about why there are only 15 seasons listed in those last 2 tables. Can you clarify? Thanks.

Interesting, although it makes sense in that the later starters would have less wear-and-tear.

Yet to see if that’s truly the cause, we’d probably have to measure what the late starters were doing in the minors. For example, did Posada ever catch 100+ in a season in the minors before reaching the Bigs?

Doug, thanks for putting some numbers to the notion I’ve held recently while looking at catcher stats(specifically–where is Brian McCann in relation to a possible Hall of Fame path related to others before him). I’m convinced that what you say is true-it’s not just age that determines decline but, for catchers most especially, cumulative wear-and-tear.

Johnny Bench is a great example. Perhaps the NL’s best hitter in the early 70s, an astute reader pointed out that an injury around ’72 or ’73 that Bench sustained kept him from ever again putting up numbers like he had previously. While this injury may have kept him from putting up league-leading HR and RBI numbers throughout the mid and late 70s, I don’t think it explains why Bench was essentially done at age 33. I think it’s the cumulative wear-and-tear from catching so much and missing off-days due to his phenomenal bat early in his career.

I do agree with the notion that for the overwhelming majority of catchers that there are only so many games they can catch before their performance falls off- and usually it’s off a cliff. That said, I would put serious money that if not for: 1) institutionalized racism in baseball 2) 2 years of military service and 3) Yogi Berra that Elston Howard would have had a Hall of Fame career.

But the most eye popping season on the list for me was Pudge Fisk at age 42. Catching 116 games, 521 plate appearances and a OPS+ of 134. Even the next year when his OPS+ dropped to 97, he still managed 100+ games caught and over 500 PA’s. And both seasons dWAR considered him a well above average defensive catcher. Pudge Rodriguez may share both a nickname and a reputation for playing a long time but he was subpar offensively and little better than mediocre defensively from the time he turned 36.

That age 42 seasons for Pudge Fisk is one of only 8 seasons at 4 WAR or better, by a player in his forties. The others: Mays, Wagner, Cobb, Appling (twice), Sam Rice and Darrell Evans. Only Appling also had such a season at 42.

It’s funny that Fisk a few years back blasted players taking steroids, pointing out how players were all of a sudden producing great seasons and remaining productive into the early 40s. Ironic, since Fisk became more durable in his 30s, and had one of most productive years WAR wise for a post-40 player, and the best ever by a catcher.

It’s funny that the post mentioned that no one seems to be noticing how well Ruiz is doing and then there are more comments about how the data was pulled than about Ruiz. If this was done on purpose as a subtle joke, bravo.